ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy 
of the United States 



ANNUAL ORATION 

DELIVERED BEFORE 

THE SOCIETY OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC 

BY 

WILLIAM H. LAMBERT 

AT 

PITTSBURGH OCTOBER ii 1899 



With Coinplrments of 



,£-^^ cTT 



WILLIAM H. LJM<BE^T, 



Hn-.'ct Major i '. S. I '. 



MUTUAL LIFE BUILD/Xii, 
rhila.lflf'hia. 



■^ 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

With each succeeding reunion of the Society of the Army 
of the Potomac, the task assigned its Orator becomes increas- 
ingly difficult. 

The story of the grand Army has been told so eloquently, 
its great battles have been so forcefully described, its com- 
manders have been eulogized so lovingly, the heroism and en- 
durance of its men have been recounted with such enthusiasm, 
such full presentation has been made of all phases of its 
glorious history — its hopes, its fears, its defeats, its victories, 
the splendid review which marked its passing, the controver- 
sies concerning its campaigns — that there remains little untold. 

The object of the Society being memorial and historic 
rather than philosophic or prophetic, I am constrained to 
choose a theme associated with the past rather than to consider 
the questions of to-day, or the outlook for the future, or the 
trend of destiny. 

Thus constrained, and so limited, I ask your patience whilst 
I strive to present some phases of the character of Abraham 
Lincoln, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the 
United States in its greatest war, hoping that the theme will 
not be deemed inappropriate to this occasion, for whilst he 
commanded all the armies of the Union, his association with 
the Army of the Potomac was ever closest and most intimate. 
It was the only Army that he personally visited and reviewed, 
and whilst he was interested alike in the success of all, the 
success of this was of most vital import, for upon the Army of 
the Potomac rested in especial sense, the defence of the 
Capital, the prevention of foreign interference, the very life of 
the Nation. 

Such is the veneration in which the memory of Abraham 
Lincoln is held, such is the halo which surrounds his name 
and his history, that it is difficult now to recall him to view as 
he was before the War. - . 



So Important was his work during the four eventful years, 
so powerful was his influence then and since, that it is now 
almost impossible to realize how little known Lincoln was 
to the country at large prior to the assembling of the Con- 
vention which nominated him for the Presidency. 

He had served a single term in the National House of 
Representatives ; his name had been presented to the first 
National Convention of the Republican party as a candidate 
for the Vice-Presidency ; he had engaged with Stephen A. 
Douglas in a political debate, in many respects, perhaps, the 
most notable in our history outside the halls of Congress: 
as a result of this debate, he had secured a majority of the 
popular vote of the State for the Republican candidates for 
the Legislature, which was to choose the United States 
Senator, but the majority of the legislators chosen was for 
Douglas. The fame of the debate led a club of young men in 
the city of New York to invite Mr. Lincoln to lecture there, and, 
in compliance, he made a remarkable address at the Cooper 
Institute, in the presence of an audience which comprised some 
of the foremost members of the Republican party ; and because 
of this address he was requested to deliver a scries of speeches 
in the New England States. 

These speeches in New York and the East attracted the 
attention of men influential in the councils of the party, who 
were antagonistic to the more prominent candidates for the 
nomination for the Presidency, and were seeking a candidate 
who would be more likely to be elected. 

Consideration of Mr. Lincoln's availability, the importunity 
of the Republican candidates for Governor in Pennsylvania 
and Indiana — supposedly doubtful States, local antagonism 
to Seward and Chase, and the intense earnestness of Lincoln's 
friends in Illinois and adjacent Western States conjoined to 
secure for him the nomination. 

Seemingly so little impression had Mr. Liiuoln made ui)on 
tln! people at large, that the conservatives who deprecated the 
radical phrase of the "Irrepressible Conflict" had ai)parently 
forgotten — if indeed they ever knew — that months before 
Mr. Seward had uttered the obj<jaionable words, Mr. Lincoln 



had asserted "A house divided against itself cannot stand, I 
believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave 
and half free." 

For the moment, the supreme fact of the Chicago Conven- 
tion of i860 "was the defeat of Seward rather than the nomina- 
tion of Lincoln. It was the triumph of a presumption of 
availability over pre-eminence in intellect and unrivalled fame." 

In a book published in New York in 1859, entitled 
" Presidential Candidates, containing sketches of Prominent 
Candidates for the Presidency in i860," sketches are given of 
twenty-one distinguished men ; in another entitled " Our Living 
Representative Men," published in Philadelphia in i860, thirty- 
four memoirs are given ; in neither of these books is Abraham 
Lincoln named, except incidentally in one of the sketches of 
Douglas, where allusion is made to the defeat of the former. 

The exigencies of political literature, the necessity for a 
biography of the candidate for the Presidency, and the enterprise 
of a publishing house, which in the spring of i860, put forth in 
book form the Lincoln-Douglas debates, gave the great multi- 
tude the first opportunity to learn somewhat of the man who 
had been chosen in preference to Seward and Chase and others 
who, like them, had long been distinguished in public affairs. 
The meagreness of biographical detail about Lincoln compelled 
greater attention to the fully quoted speeches, which gave 
physical and mental substance to the campaign lives ; and 
discriminating readers saw that he was possessed of no 
ordinary forensic ability. But withal, the fact remains that 
never, at so critical a period, had a man been chosen for so 
high an office, of whose fitness so little was known. 

Elected to the Presidency by a minority ot the popular 
vote of the United States, his election followed by the pro- 
nounced withdrawal of several States, Mr. Lincoln might well be 
awed by the stupendous responsibility which awaited him. The 
long period of suspense between his election and Inauguration 
was fraught with intense anxiety, unrelieved by any public utter- 
ance from the President-elect until he set forth from the home to 
which he was never to return alive. His touching farewell to 
his Springfield neighbors, and the series of addresses in 



reply to greetings from the various communities through 
which he passed on his journey to the National Capital, plainly 
showed that he appreciated the weight of the burden which he 
was to assume, and so far encouraged the party which had 
elected him; but they gave litde evidence that he was equal 
to the impending responsibility. 

In the lurid light of after events, the assertion which Mr. 
Lincoln made in Independence Hall that, rather than surrender 
the principles which had been declared there, he would be 
assassinated on the spot, stands pre-eminent as indicating 
the source and the courage of his political convictions ; whilst 
the fact that, at the time of its utterance, he had been 
warned of a conspiracy to kill him, removes from these words 
any suspicion of striving for rhetorical effect, and invests them 
with the solemnity of prophecy. 

The Inauo-ural address of the new President was awaited 
with painful solicitude. Apprehension that, in hope of averting 
disaster, he might yield somewhat of the principles upon which 
he liad been ehrcted ; fear that, in retaliation for threats of dis- 
union, he might determine upon desperate assault on the rights 
of the revolted and threatening States ; mistrust that he might 
prove unequal to the Nation's supreme exigency, combined to 
intensify anxiety. The address f.-ilod to satisfy extremists 
either North or South, but the loyal people of the free States 
were deliofhted with the manifest determination of the Presi- 
dent to preserve, protect, and defend the government he had 
sworn to uphold. But his solemn assurance that he would in 
no wise endanger the property, peace, and security, of any 
section of the country ; that it was his purpose to administer 
the government as it had come to him, and to transmit it unim- 
paired by any act of his to his successor ; and his appeal to the 
memories of the past, and the common interests of the present 
were alike powerless to recall the revolted States to their alle- 
giance, or to restrain the action of other States, bent on follow- 
ing th(-ir example. Anticij)ating the commencement ot Mr. Lin- 
coln's administration, the Southern Confederacy had been pro- 
claimed, and now its troojis were arrayed against the authority 
of the United States, whilst the absence ol efforts of repression 



seemed to indicate that the dissolution of the Union, so proudly 
declared by the States in rebellion, was to be accomplished. 

For weeks succeeding his inauguration, the new President 
awaited the progress of events — the policy of laissez-faire 
seemed to have been adopted. Some tentative efforts were made 
to relieve the beleaguered forts within the limits of the insur- 
gent territory but apparently the Nation was drifting to death. 

But the shot on Sumter wrought instant and wondroife 
change. However uncertain may have been Abraham Lincoln's 
views as to the method of maintaining the Union, his purpose 
to maintain it had been positively declared ; and from the 
moment the flag was fired upon, the method was no longer m 
doubt. The call of April 15, 186 1, was the answer to the 
challenge of Charleston Harbor. We know now that the 
number of men called forth was strangely inadequate to the 
work to be done — but the value of the call was less in the 
number of men it evoked than in the assertion that armed 
rebellion was to be confronted, and that the power of the 
Nation was to be put forth, not for revenge or for conquest, 
but for its own preservation, and the enforcement of the laws. 

The choice of the battle ground, as well as the conduct of 
the batde, measures the fitness of the leader. On the ground 
of National existence the great battle was begun ; at times, the 
cloud and the smoke of the awful four years' conflict may have 
obscured and hidden the field, but on that ground the final 
victory was won. 

President Lincoln had chosen the field on which the battle 
for the Nation's life was to be fought : was he competent to 
direct its conduct? 

Previous to his entrance upon the Presidency, he had had 
no opportunity to display any marked ability for the administra- 
tion of great affairs, but the inception of the War demonstrat- 
ed that the hour and the man had met. From the beginning 
of armed hostilities until the close of his earthly career, he 
showed that he possessed pre-eminent qualifications for the 
successful discharge of the duties of his office. 

I shall not attempt to epitomize the story of his conduct of 
the war. Neither time nor disposition will permit me to enter 



upon the discussion of controversies concerning his dealings 
with his subordinates, civil and military; but, craving your indul- 
gence for the re-presentation of a familiar theme, I shall 
endeavor to emphasize some of the characteristics which, in 
my judgment, conduced to Abraham Lincoln's success as 
Commander-in-Chief. 

Destitute of experience in statecraft, with no precedent 
cither in our own history or in that of other lands to guide him, 
the task which confronted the President was of appalling mag- 
nitude. He had called to his cabinet the chief of the leaders of 
the Republican party, men whose greater experience in public 
affairs, and whose admitted ability and acquirements justified 
their selection, and might well indeed have induced him to sub- 
mit to their direction, but he realized that as President, he could 
not, if he would, transfer the obligation of his office. Whatever 
doubts may have existed in the minds of his advisers as to the 
President's willingness and fitness to accept the responsibility 
of his station were soon dispelled, and there could be no doubt 
that the President dominated his administration from the begin- 
ning, when he notified the Secretary of State, " if this must 
be done I must do it — still upon points arising in its progress, 
I wish and suppose I am entitled to have the advice of all the 
cabinet," to the close, when he advised the Lieutenant-General, 
"You are not to decide, discuss or confer upon political ques- 
tions, such questions the President holds in his own hands and 
will submit them to no military conferences or conventions," 

The responsibility so accepted, he never endeavored to 
evade, and he never sought shelter for himself behind his 
subordinates ; but, on the contrary, gave them praise for success, 
ar'd took upfMi himself blame for failure in actions, which he 
had suggested, ordered or permitted. What he said of General 
Meade was typical of th(^ President's attitude, "the honor will 
be his if he succeeds, and the blame may be mine if he fails." 
Not less characteristic of his sense of responsibility was his 
declaration to citizens of Missouri, " I hold whoever com- 
mands in Missouri nr elsewhere res{)onsible to me and not 
to either Radicals or Conservatives, h is m\ (lut\- to hear all, 



but at last I must within my sphere judge what to do and what 
to forbear." 

The outbreak of hostilities presented to President Lincoln 
an opportunity not of his seeking, but of which he might well 
avail himself. However specious the plea of State rights, 
however disguised might be the chief motive which prompted 
the secession of the revolting States, he knew, as the people 
knew, that slavery was the real cause of the rebellion. He 
had long foreseen that the country could not permanently 
endure partially slave, partially free ; he knew that slavery had 
been the basis of the controversies and dangers of the past. 
If tradition may be believed, in his early manhood he had 
declared that if ever he should have a chance, he would hit 
slavery hard and now the chance had come. Slavery was 
attempting the destruction of the Republic, and, by its own 
appeal to arms was offering an opportunity for a counter-blow, 
which might forever destroy an institution whose malign influ- 
ence had long controlled national affairs, and endangered the 
perpetuity of the Nation. He was President and Commander- 
in-Chief; behind him was a great party enthusiastic for the 
proclamation of freedom to the slave, and urgent for its issue ; 
the temptation was great, but it did not sway him from his 
duty. He had been the nominee of a party, but he had been 
elected President of the United States, and neither hope of 
partisan gain nor personal gratification could swerve him from 
what he conceived to be the obligation of his oath. 

" My paramount object in this struggle is to save the 

Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. 

What I do about slavery 1 do because I believe it 

helps to save the Union ; and what I forbear, I forbear because 
I do not believe it would help to save the Union." 

" If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot 
remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet I have never 
understood that the presidency conferred upon me an 
unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feel- 
ino". It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my 
ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the 
United States. I could not take the office without taking the 



oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get 
power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, 
too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade 
me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the 

moral question of slavery. And I aver that, to this 

day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract 
judgment and feeling on slavery." 

With clear view, and steadfast purpose, President Lincoln 
devoted his life to the preservation of the Union. To accom- 
plish this end, in the spirit of the great Apostle to the Gentiles 
he made himself servant unto all that he might gain 
the more. Subordinating self, personal prejudices and 
partisan feelings were not allowed to obtrude between him and 
his conception of the country's need. Possession of ability to 
serve the cause was the essential qualification for high office 
and honor, and outweio-hinor other considerations, atoned 
for past or present personal objection. At the opening of 
1862 he appointed as chief of the War Department a man of 
boundless zeal and energy, who had treated Mr. Lincoln with 
marked discourtesy, had denounced his conduct of the war, and 
had freely expressed dislike for him and doubt of his fitness — 
an appointment as sagacious and fortunate as it was magnan- 
imous. He retained in his cabinet the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, whose own aspirations for the Presidential nomination were 
well known to Mr. Lincoln, who wrote, "Whether you shall 
remain at the head of the Treasury Department is a question 
which I will not allow myself to consider from any standpoint 
other than my judgment of the public service, and, in that view, 
I do not perceive occasion for a change." And to a strong 
partisan and personal friend, who was disposed to hold the 
President at fault because he continued in high commands men 
who were supposed to be wanting in perfect acconl wiih the 
administration, he replied: "I need success more than I need 
symjKithy, and I have not seen the so much greater evidence of 
getting success from my sympathizers than from those who are 
denounced as the contrary. It does seem to me that, in the 
field, th(i two classes have be(;n very much alike in what they 
have done, and what tlu;y have failed to do. In sealing their 



faith with their blood, Baker and Lyon and Bohlen and Rich- 
ardson, Republicans, did all that men could do ; but did they 
any more than Kearny and Stevens and Reno and Mansfield, 
none of whom were Republicans, and some at least of whom 
have been bitterly and repeatedly denounced to me as secession 
sympathizers ? " 

In discussing the causes of the War of the Rebellion it is 
not uncommon to attribute the conditions which preceded it to 
the machinations of fanatics and partisan extremists — Aboli- 
tionists and Disunionists — and it is frequently asserted that had 
they been restrained, disruption would have been avoided. 
Unquestionably, agitation of the slavery question on the one 
hand, and the effort to suppress that agitation on the other, em- 
bittered popular feeling North and South ; but that these were 
"more than powerful influences is incapable of proof. The cause 
of the War was inherent in the very existence of slavery. Time 
and again the efforts of conservative statesmen to avert 
threatened disunion had been successful, and the evil day 
had been postponed. But the several legislative compromises 
between opposing forces had become successively more diffi- 
cult of enactment, and the duration of each had become less 
than that of its predecessor. The limit of compromise had 
been reached, the conflict had indeed become irrepressible, the 
country could no longer endure half-slave, half free — the issue 
must be determined, and the strife was on. Political ambition, 
partisan hate, intemperate zeal hastened, but deep-seated 
popular conviction caused the outbreak. 

The War of 1861-5 was no mere factional contest. It 
was a people's war, begun by a people jealous of its institu- 
tions, fearful of the wane of the power it had long wielded, 
distrustful of the new administration's assurances of non-inter- 
vention with the rights of States, and conscious that the limita- 
tion of slavery to the territory that it now occupied must event- 
ually effect its extinction. The war was accepted by a people 
innocent of purpose to interfere with the "domestic institution " 
within State lines, and far from united in opinion about slavery, 
and though substantially opposed to its extension over the 
country's free domain, not agreed as to the best method of 



legislative treatment ; but absolutely one in love for the 
Union and determination to maintain it. 

" One would make war rather than let the Nation survive, 
and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. 
And the war came." 

Only the enlistment of the people on each of the contend- 
ing sides could have sustained so long a war of such magni- 
tude, and offered such heroic devotion as distinguished the war 
against and for the Union. President Lincoln realized that his 
ability to make effective his oath to preserve the government 
was dependent upon the firm and continued support of the loyal 
people, that he could lead them no faster and no further than 
they would follow, and that he must deserve if he would retain 
their confidence. His faith in the principles of the Declaration 
of Independence, his conviction that the people were the rightful 
source of all governmental power, had suffered no change by 
his elevation to the Presidency. In an especial sense a man of 
the people, the restraint which kept him closely in touch with 
them was not unwillingly borne, but readily accepted as the 
condition under which he best could act with and for them. 

The acquisition of vast power, increasing with the pro- 
longation of the war, made no change in the simplicity of his 
character. Unhampered by conventionalities, indifferent to 
forms, he received his old-time friends with the freedom of their 
earlier intercourse, and was accessible to all who sougln him. 
No visitor was too humble for his consideration, and if. in too 
many instances, the causes which received his attention were 
too trivial to engage the thought of the Chief Magistrate 
of a great nation, the very fact of his willingness to see and 
hear all. endeared him to the; people, who saw in liim one of 
themselves unspoiled by power, unharmed by success. 

As no President before him had done, he confided in the 
people ; and in a series of remarkable letters and speeches, 
explained or justified his niorc! important acts bv arguments ol 
sim])lest form but marvelous strength. liis frankness and 
directness of expression, his obvious sincerity and absolute 
patriotism, even, perhaps, as much as the force of his reason- 



ing, compelled respect for his acts, and enlarged the numbers 
and increased the faith of his strenuous supporters. 

The sympathetic audience which the President gave to 
every tale of woe, his manifest reluctance to inflict the extreme 
penalty which violation of military law entailed, seemed at 
times to detract from the dignity of his high office, and prompted 
commanding officers to complain that the proper maintenance 
of discipline was rendered impossible by Mr. Lincoln's sensi- 
bility ; but these characteristics strengthened his hold upon the 
people at home and in the army. In his profound sympathy, 
in his splendid courage, in his transparent honesty, in his 
patriotic devotion, in his simplicity of thought and manner, nay, 
in the very haggardness of feature, ungainliness of form, and 
homeliness of attire, he seemed the expression of a plain peo- 
ple's hopes, the embodiment of their cause, which he steadily up- 
held, even when, for the moment, other forces seemed powerless. 

Here was neither Caesar nor Napoleon, but a popular 
leader such as befitted a Republic destined to preserve its 
popular form, though its ruler wielded imperial power ; a 
leader whose highest ambition was to save the country and to 
transmit the government unimpaired to his successor ; a leader 
who, in an hour when his administration seemed to have lost 
popular support, calmly faced the prospect of defeat by the 
ballot and the election of another in his stead ; and who, though 
commanding a million of armed men whose love and loyalty 
to him were unquestioned, deliberately wrote for his own guid- 
ance, " It seems exceedingly probable that this administration 
will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co- 
operate with the President-elect as to save the Union between 
the election and the inauoruration ; as he will have secured his 
election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it 
aftervx^ard." ^ 

Commander-in-Chief of the greatest army on the globe, 
Mr. Lincoln v/as yet so forgetful of self, that desiring a position 
in that army for his son, he made application to the General- 
in Chief in these words : 

"Please read and answer this letter as though I was not 
President, but only a friend. My son. now in his twenty-second 



year, having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something of 
the war before it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, 
nor yet to give him a commission, to which those who have 
already served long are better entitled and better qualified to 
hold. Could he, wiihout embarrassment to you or detriment to 
the service, go into your military family with some nominal 
rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If 
no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious 
and as deeply interested that you shall not be encumbered 
as you can be yourself." 

Generals intoxicated with power and anticipations of suc- 
cess, might assert the country's need of a dictator and, 
apparently, be not unwilling to assume the role, but the Presi- 
dent, without shadow of jealousy of any of his subordinates, 
shrewdly declared "only those generals who gain successes 
can set up dictators. What I ask of you is military success, I 
will risk the dictatorship." 

His readiness to accord to others the praise due their ser- 
vice to the country was markedly characteristic of Mr, Lincoln, 
and was most notable in his high appreciation of the services 
of the men who on land and sea were upholding the coun- 
try's flag. Not in an assumption of modesty, but from the 
fullness of his heart came the assertion at Gettysburg, "the 
world will little note nor long remember what[we say here, but 
it will never forget what they did here." This was not the only 
tribute that he paid to those who had borne the battle. On 
many public occasions, in official communications, in responses 
to congratulations upon victories won by troops or shii)s, he 
gratefully acknowledged the indebtedness of the Nation, and of 
himself as its Chief, to those who gave or risked their lives that 
it might live. 

And of his sympathy with those who had suffered for the 
cause of the Union his acts and words give fullest proof — as 
when to the Massachusetts mother whose five sons had fallen 
in battU; he wnjte " I feel how weak and fruitless must be any 
words of mine which should attctmpt to In'guile you Iroiii tlie 
grief of a loss so ovfMwhclining. I5ul 1 cannot refrain h-om 
tendering to you the consolation that m;i)' \)v fouml in the 



thanks of the RepubUc they died to save. I pray that our 
heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, 
and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved 
and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid 
so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." 

His reo-ard for the soldier himself had many forms of 
expression, but none finer than his gift to the Chicago Sanitary 
Fair, of the original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, 
the document whose authorship and issue already constituted, in 
the esteem of millions, and in that of millions more was to con- 
stitute, his strongest tide to immortal fame. 

" I had some desire to retain the paper ; but if it shall 
contribute to the relief or comfort of the soldiers, that will be 

better." 

That Mr. Lincoln was always fortunate in the selection of 
his military chiefs, that he never countenanced unwise military 
movements, and that he was free from errors of judgment and 
action, impartial history will not claim ; but the purity of his 
motives, the sincerity of his effort to secure the best results for 
the country, cannot be gainsaid, and no fair-minded observer will 
dispute the President's shrewdness and sagacity, the general 
accuracy of his appreciation of military conditions, and the 
wisdom of the greater part of his suggestions. 

General Sherman, whose honesty and ability as a military 
critic will not be disputed, said of Mr. Lincoln, "that without 
professing any technical military knowledge, he seemed to be 
possessed of the essential principles of military law, science and 

art he possessed a knowledge of man in the abstract, 

whether soldier or citizen, which gave him the key to all human 
motives and actions," and his correspondence "exhibits a wonder- 
ful familiarity with actual events, and the strength of our own 
armies and detachments, and of those of the enemy ; the objects 
which it was desirable to accomplish in the near future, and the 
best way to accomplish them ; all of which were purely militar>', 
as distinguished from the political aims and purposes which 
must have absorbed so much of his time." 

And beyond President Lincoln's ability to understand the 
military situadon, and to give wise counsel, the confidence and 



support which he gave to all his leaders — in unstinted meas- 
ure as they demonstrated their wordiiness of his trust ; the 
willincrness with which he admitted his own limitations, and 
commended those who met or exceeded his hopes, called 
forth from his command the best endeavor, the highest 
devotion for the Commander who had such broad sympathy, 
loyal purpose and unenvious appreciation. 

The splendid manifestation of popular feeling which 
followed the assault upon Sumter might easily have caused the 
President to rely confidently upon popular support in his every 
effort to suppress the Rebellion — the generous response to his 
call for troops might readily have assured him that the number 
of volunteers would exceed all needs — and have led him to 
expect the speedy end of the war ; but he was not deluded by 
the hope that the war would be of short duration, but saw the 
necessity of preparation for a long struggle, and felt the 
importance of conserving all interests, and of securing the 
support of all who, however they may have differed in 
other respects, agreed in devotion to the Union. Hence, he 
made concession to the opinions of those who whilst opposed 
to disunion, did not sympathize with his own views concerning 
slavery and its extension. How a free people would conduct a 
lono- war was a problem to be demonstrated, and President 
Lincoln was unwilling to alienate any who were faithful to the 
government, even though they deprecated the occasion whicli 
had placed it in jeopardy. His sagacity and his observation 
had shown him how wavering were the currents of popular 
opinion, how readily popular enthusiasm could be quenched 
by disappointment and defeat, and how imperative it was for him 
to hold together all elements requisite to the successful pros- 
ecution of the war. 

The enthusiasm of the Sumter days might be chilled by 
the disasters of Bull Run and Hall's Bluff, but its energy was 
to become endurance, and thus, final victory. Whoever 
else mi"-ht lose heart, the President could not — him disaster 
could not dismay nor dcfi al discourage. 

Disajjpointed friends might invrir;h against his caution 
and demand dismissal of leaders and change of j)olicy. hike- 



warm supporters might withdraw their confidence, supersensi- 
tive observers might denounce heroic war measures as invasions 
of personal or of State rights, but, despite harassment and 
annoyance and antagonism, the Commander, unshaken in pur- 
pose, indomitable in courage, moved steadily on. The defection 
of old friends and party associates might grieve him, the unjust 
accusations of nominal Unionists might rankle, but he could 
not be deflt :ted from the line of his duty. 

He knew that other than purely military considerations 
might rightfully determine campaigns ; that success in the field, 
though conducive to success at home, and to ultimate triumph 
was not the only essential ; and that to maintain the armies at the 
front it was imperative to sustain the sentiment of the people 
at home. From the broader outlook of the Capital, from his 
knowledge of the people directly and through their chosen 
representatives he appreciated, as the generals in the field could 
not, the absolute necessity of popular support as well as of 
military success. 

Consciousness of President Lincoln's fitness for his exalted 
station, not less than popular approval of his course, retained 
him as Commander, though opportunity for change came in 
a dark period of the war, when the stress and struggle of 
its four years had disheartened many who had once been his 
adherents. In the fortunes of the war, they who led the 
several armies at its termination were men unknown or incon- 
spicuous at its beginning, the gifted soldiers who first gave 
form to those armies were not those who led them to ultimate 
victory ; but the great Commander who first called the people 
to arms was he who led them to the triumphant close. 

Presidenit Lncoln gave early evidence that he was willing 
to assume the gravest responsibilities by acts which he believed 
would conduce to the great end that he had in view. " I feel 
that measures otherwise unconstitutional mio-ht become lawful 
by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitu- 
tion through the preservation of the Nation. Right or wrong 
I assumed this ground, and now avow it." Acting upon this 
theory, whilst he had abstained from striking at slavery as an evil 
in itself and in its results> yet when, by deliberate and painful 



consideration, he became convinced that the preservation of 
the Union demanded freedom for the slave, he determined 
upon emancipation so far as he could effect it consistently with 
his constitutional obligation and his military prerogative. We 
honor his memory because of the courage and the foresight 
which led him to this great and beneficent act, but we do not 
detract in any wise from his fame as the liberator of the slave 
when we call attention to the fact that uniformly he justified the 
act by its military necessity, and never claimed for it the merit 
of righteousness because it abolished a great wrong. Earlier 
in the war, he had revoked Fremont's and Hunter's attempts at 
emancipation because he regarded their action as unwarranted 
assumption of power, and because he did not believe the indis- 
pensable necessity for emancipation had come ; and later, he 
thus expressed himself: "The original proclamation had 
no constitutional or legal justification, except as a military 

measure. If I take the step, (making the proclamation 

applicable to parts of Virginia and Louisiana which had been 
exempted because of our occupancy of them) must I not do so 
without the argument of military necessity, and so without any 
argument except the one that I think it a measure politically^ 
expedient and morally right ? Would I not thus give up all 
footing upon constitution or law ? Would I not thus be in the 
boundless field of absolutism ? " And in his message to Con- 
gress in December, 1863, "According to our political system, 
as a matter of civil administration, the general Government had 
no lawful power to effect emancipation in any State, and for a 
long time it had been hoped that the rebellion could be sup- 
pressed without resorting to it as a military measure." 

Hut having decided upon emancipation as a military neces- 
sity, he also declared that he would not retract or modify the 
proclamation, nor would he return to slavery any person who 
had been frcftd by its terms or by any of the acts of Congress, 
and in his last annual message repeating that declaration he said, 
"if tile peojjle should, by whatever mode and means, make it an 
executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another and not I 
must be their instrument to perlorm it." 



Emancipation, which, in its inception, was necessarily 
Hmited and largely tentative, became, by force of his action and 
by reason of his advocacy, universal and permanent ; by legal 
procedure inspired by him the war measure became a constitu- 
tional enactment, and to the end of time Abraham Lincoln will 
be known as the Liberator of four millions of slaves. 

The possession of imperial power, the accomplishment 
of complete victory — saving the Union and securing its 
by-product, emancipation, the plaudits of exulting thousands 
did not change the man, or tempt him to forego his alle- 
giance to the Constitution, or to waver in his devotion to " the 
sentiments embodied in die Declaration of Independence." 
No aspiration for perpetuity of power separated him from the 
plain people upon whom he reUed, from whose ranks he had 
come, to whom he expected to return. For it is his glory that 
he not only completed a great work, and guaranteed its beneficent 
and far-reaching consequences, "but," to quote another's lan- 
guage, " that during the stormiest and most perilous crisis in our 
history, he so conducted the government and so wielded liis 
almost dictatorial power as to leave essentially intact our free 
institutions in ,all things that concern the rights and liberdes of 
the citizen." 

When forty thousand Frenchmen, chafing under the impe- 
rial rule that had overthrown their loved Republic, sought to 
express their sympathy with the American people in the hour 
of its profound grief, they presented to the widow of the 
martyred President a massive gold medal, upon which was 
inscribed this summary of his work, this legend of his eternal 
fame: "Lincoln the honest man — abolished slavery, re- 
established THE Union — saved the Republic — without veil- 
ing THE FORM OF LiBERTY." 

From the highest reach that Mr. Lincoln had attained before 
his accession to the Presidency to the zenith of his career, the 
space seems incalculable. The study of his earlier life shows 
indeed that he possessed clearness of thought, remarkable 
gift of expression, native sagacity, honesty of purpose, and 
courage of conviction ; that he was devoted to the rights of man, 
and that he loved his country ; but that he possessed elements 



of greatness In such degree as was revealed by the war, could 
not have been surmised from aug-ht he had said or done. And 
that he should manifest so soon and so signally his ability to rule a 
great nation in the most dangerous period of its existence; that he 
should overtower his associates, and prove that more than they 
he was fitted to save the government ; that he could wield a 
power vastly greater than that which had been possessed by his 
predecessors and surpassing that exercised by any contemporary 
ruler, king or emperor, could not have been foreseen by any 
lacking divine inspiration. Not by graded steps, but by giant 
stride, Lincoln reached the height of power, achievement, and 
fame. 

True, the progress of the war revealed growth in his charac- 
ter, thought, and force, and he stood conspicuously higher at its 
close than at its beginning ; but at its opening it was apparent 
that Providence had so shaped the country's destiny that the 
man who had been chosen mainly because of his availability as 
a presidential candidate was far and away the one man for the 
office and the work. 

Thus it came to pass that he who, at the beginning, had 
said truthfully, "I cannot but know what you all know, that 
without a name — perhaps without reason why I should have a 
name — there has fallen upon me a task such as did not rest 
even upon the Father of his Country," within four years of that 
utterance had attained such renown and wrought such result that 
on the roll of great Americans the one name which we think it 
not robbery to be equal with that of Washington is the name 
of Abraham Lincoln. 



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